


Run Until You Drop Dead

by ThePerk42



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Drugs, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Near Death Experiences, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-02 07:52:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4052236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePerk42/pseuds/ThePerk42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Furiosa makes an unexpected (unwanted) discovery in the middle of the wastes. It makes her fear for the life of some for whom she cares very deeply.</p><p>Written as a response to this prompt: "Max gets in some trouble out in the desert, and handles it, but not before he gets stuck with a syringe full of.....something bad (...) cue a desperate Furiosa doing everything in her power to get him fixed (...)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You can find the prompt, in its entirety, here: http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=132034
> 
> This is my first foray into writing anything like this, so I would absolutely adore any constructive comments you have for me! :)

                The Citadel wasn’t long behind him when he heard the grumble of engines, other than the one revving between his legs, growing louder behind him. He thought to ignore them, staring straight forward, instead, eyes on the shivering horizon. The motorcycle he had absconded with was fast, but whoever was behind him rode something faster – the noise level swelling with every passing mile. They were stirring up sand and he could feel the dust and grit flying at him, hitting him in the face, digging into his hair, pelting his clothing. Soon, Max thought, whoever it was would be close to him. They could come astride his motorcycle with little to no effort and he was just one, where up until recently, he had been part of a small legion.

                He squinted his eyes at the setting sun and leaned forward on the bike, lips pressed together in concentration. Unsure of how many were behind him, unsure of what they wanted, unsure of where they were from, he opened the throttle and let his back wheel spin out a modicum, sending a quick shot of orange into the air. It shoved him forward with a burst of speed and for another mile or so, the other engines faded. His hands grasped the handlebars tightly and his knee brace banged on the tank of guzzoline between his legs. He heard a pop and a fizzle – a flare going off. But why?

                Finally, finally, finally Max ducked his head to look in one of his grimy mirrors. At least 15 men behind him – they looked like they might be from the Bullet Farm but he didn’t know for sure and he didn’t care. Cruisers and bikes, men holding on like they wanted to fall off, fire and red fans of dust in the air. Max closed his eyes for a moment – he had thought he would be free of Fury Road for some time, but it was coming back at him with alarming speed, even as the plateau of the Citadel sizzled behind the hoard of men.

                There was dizziness in him, lingering from the blood he had given so willingly to Furiosa, her pale face and her wandering eyes. He begrudged her nothing, especially not his hastily given donation of life, but now he felt himself dragging. He leaned forward, hoping his bulk would spur the bike faster, but now the cloud of followers gained ever closer and Max knew that his days of running had never been far behind him.

                He could make out faces, small faces, in his mirrors. They weren’t too far behind him now, only a mile or two to go before they managed to catch up to him. He was alone and they were many. Max dipped his head, unseeing for a minute second as he rested it on the vibrating plate, the emblem of an old civilization, one he helped to overthrow, pressing into his forehead. They were close now, their shouts and cheers loud in his ears, like his hallucinations, front and center, even ahead of his own thoughts. He knew he should lift his head to look to the horizon, he should swerve and try to escape like he did last time. Max knew, instinctually, that putting up any sort of a fight would not save him, but he also knew he should do something. Regardless, he continued to rest his head on the bike, the smell of guzzoline fumes, so close, assaulting his nostrils. His eyes were closed, but even behind his eye lids, things began to dim.

                He could sense himself fading even as he felt someone shove the side of the bike. He was dimly aware of skidding, flying, spiraling along the soft hardness of a sand dune, tumbling, falling, not flailing but – limbs akimbo – landing.

* * *

                It hadn’t taken her long to adjust to her de facto role as a leader. When they had returned, and the world was hazy and dizzy, Max had propped her up and presented her to the War Pups and the Wretched as a saviour, the lone victor over Immortan Joe and the broken populace had be only too happy to accept her as their new ruler. They had been desperate for one without even knowing it.

               Furiosa had not been a leader, she was not a mother, she was not a lover, she was a woman and she was entirely her own. But she found as in all things past, for this she had been able to shift and adjust her behavior to be some semblance of a ruler for these people. One of the first things she needed to do, once she was rested and fed and the world ceased to shimmer before her face, was to head out and create a pact with the Bullet Farm and Gas Town. Otherwise, the people of Her Citadel would never be safe – certainly no safer than they had been under the consistently dry thumb of Immortan Joe.

               The wives pleaded with her not to go, begged her stay and let others go in her stead – for all they had been through on Fury Road, they were kind and gentle, naïve to the ways of humans in the world; they thought if they ignored the others, the others would ignore them. It was the Vuvalini, in the end, who convinced the wives that Furiosa needed to go and that there needed to be something in place to protect the people who called Her Citadel home.

               So it is, that on this dry, hot morning, Furiosa finds herself saddling her bike, a large motorcycle, big enough for at least 3 riders. She calls it “The Steed” in her head, but she’s never said it out loud. She’s never said too much that doesn’t need to be said, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. She doesn’t plan to be gone for long, but Toast still has to make sure that there’s plenty of water – _aqua cola_ , she tries to forget – bottled and bagged for her, plenty of food to sustain her if the journey takes too long.

               Just one War Boy joins her, on his own bike. He reminds her a little of Nux, wanting to please her but still trapped by his visions of Valhalla and longing for nothing more that eternal glory – when you die young, you have to live forever. He’s quiet while he tests the suspension of his bike, heels pressing into the sand, looking nowhere but at Furiosa and the horizon. Toast leans forward to press her forehead to Furiosa’s and with that the two person team drives away, toward the glinting of a mirror far away. There’s no fanfare, Furiosa won’t have it – she’s not a savior.

               The drive to Gas Town doesn’t take long, the sun is only halfway up the sky when Furiosa skids her bike to a halt, the massive steel walls of the conclave baring down on her. She glances over at the war boy, Jenga, she thinks his name is, to see what his face is doing. His mouth is agape, staring up at the guardian fence for the first time. “How do we get in, Imperator?” he asks, his voice hushed in awe. He has seen many things in his short life, but nothing like this.

               “We’ll be met,” she mutters, staring at the walkway that extends from the island that is Gas Town. They’ve dug a moat around themselves and filled it with guzzoline. Only a fool would attempt to enter a town rigged to ignite without permission. “Wait,” she tells him.

               After what feels like a short time in the wiggling heat of the sun, she spots a man shuffling out along the walkway, his arms stiff at his sides. He moves toward awkwardly, but with purpose, he is the one they are meeting. Eventually, cautiously, he approaches the bikes. “Imperator,” he says. She can’t tell if it’s respect, or fear, or longing for retribution that she hears in his voice, but he doesn’t have a gun with him, so she doesn’t care.

               “I’ve come to negotiate,” she says. She squints at him in the sunshine. The smell of guzzoline wafts toward her on a breeze. It’s dizzying.

               “You owe us Aqua Cola,” the man says, running his hand up and down his forearm.

               “You want the Aqua Cola from the tanker.” She’s not asking.

               “Double it, and we will reopen the usual channels.”

               She wants to scoff. But she’s not here to make enemies. Jenga looks at her dubiously, probably half expecting her to reach out and choke the pretentious fuck in front of her. “It’s done. I’ll send it tomorrow. I expect my promised allotment of guzzoline in return.”

               The man glares at her, thinking, presses his thumb into the crook of his arm. “Fine,” he says, after a long moment of looking and pressing. “It’s done. We’ll trade tankers.”

               Furiosa has no right to ask for some sort of proof of his honesty, so she bites her tongue and watches the way his eyelids flutter open and shut. He lilts a little to one side as he turns and heads back into Gas Town. Who will he report to now, she wonders, now that the People Eater is gone? It isn’t until he’s across the walkway and the massive steel gate shuts behind him that Furiosa turns her bike around. It was a long way to drive for a small conversation with a strange man, but that’s what you have to do when you rule the Citadel.

               “What was wrong with him?” Jenga asks, over the roar of their engines, before the wind is too loud in their ears.

               Furiosa shakes her head. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t _want_ to know.

               The journey back feels like it takes twice as long, maybe it’s because she knows that tomorrow she has to take another trip to the Bullet Farm and she much more anxious about how she will be received there. They are a quarter of the way back when Jenga throws his arm up in front of her to slow her to a halt. “Do you see that?” he asks, when she pulls her bike up next to his. His shaky, white finger is pointing at something in the distance, a dark spot in the red sand.

               They should leave the dark spot be – it could be a trap, or worse, someone who needs their help. Furiosa knows this for a fact, even as she feels herself drawn to the spot in the sand. It would probably take her 10 minutes to drive out there, but she’s unsure of what she’ll find. Still, she realizes after a moment that she’s already angled herself towards the spot, her engine humming underneath of her. “Stay here,” she barks at Jenga, “come get me if I’m not back soon.”

               Jenga probably has a different idea of soon, but they have no way to measure small increments of time out here. Hopefully he’ll pay attention and if it seems that she’s in any danger, he’ll come to her aid. She guides her bike out slowly, taking her time so that she can look around and watch for movement in the sand. There are raiders out here who are perfectly comfortable hiding under the hot sand for days while waiting for someone to wander aimlessly into their traps. Furiosa is no fool, she won’t be caught like vermin.

               As she closes in on the spot, she realizes it is nothing more than a body huddled in the sand. A person, folded in on themselves, curled up in the vast redness around them. The stench of vomit suddenly assails her nostrils, offensive in the blistering heat. She pulls up next to the body that twitches at the sound of her approaching bike. Her shotgun is next to her on the bike and she grabs it to hold it in front of herself, cautious but unafraid of this broken being on the ground. Avoiding the wet sand – a splotch of vomit next to the body – Furiosa lifts a foot and presses her toe into the person’s side.

               “What’s wrong with you?” she asks the now shaking body.

               The person doesn’t say anything, just lets out a low, keening sound and continues to shiver in the sand.

               “Hey,” Furiosa says, her voice quieter and gentler than she expects it to be, “What’s wrong with you?”

               The body begins to roll towards her, onto their back and they unfold like a hermit crab – Furiosa saw one once in a tank in the vault. Limbs uncurling as though they had been locked in too small of a space for too long of time, slow at first, but faster as the owner of the body recognizes their freedom. Their face will be the last thing she sees, Furiosa knows, as if they are protecting their identity with their bent arms.

               Finally the person unfurls themselves completely and Furiosa frowns. The face staring back at her: the wild eyes and the manic twisted mouth, these are not things she expected to see. She drops quickly to her knees, her shotgun forgotten – dropped – at her side in the sand, and her flesh hand goes to the person’s mouth, wiping away dried vomit, while her metal hand gently cradles their head. “What are you doing here?” Furiosa asks. “What happened?” She lifts her arm to wave at Jenga – she needs help now – before dropping her gaze back down at the eyes that stare at her, unseeing.

               The body in her arms begins to convulse, muscles contracting and limbs flailing. Unsure of what to do, she pins the person’s arms to their sides and swallows thickly. Jenga is almost there, riding his bike across the sand dunes faster than she had. Suddenly there’s vomit on her shirt, in her lap, the person she is holding goes still and lets out a low moan. Furiosa tips them away from the mess and smoothes their sweaty hair away from their face. She glares at Jenga as he pulls up. “Get me a bottle of water,” she barks, fingers tangling in short, dark hair.

               Jenga doesn’t need to be told twice, and he’s quickly thrusting the bottle into her hands. Furiosa uses her teeth the twist the cap off, spits the old plastic into the sand, uncaring of the waste, and tips the person’s head up so that she can hold the water to their mouth. Most of it dribbles down the person’s cheeks, bubbling out of their mouth as they slurp thirstily at it, but she continues to hold the bottle at their lips, allowing a slow stream of water to flow. “That’s right,” she encourages quietly, “Drink slow. Take your time, Max.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter! :)
> 
>  
> 
> The warnings and rating on this may change as I continue to write it, this is only the first chapter and I'm still figuring out where I'm going to take this.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! Contains very ambiguous references to past non-con.

               It takes both Jenga and Furiosa to wrestle Max onto her bike. He’s still jittering with what appears to be the aftershocks of his earlier convulsions, and he seems to be fading into unconsciousness, so he offers no help as they lug his body over to the motorcycle. She’s not surprised to find that he’s heavier than he looks – she remembers the weight of him, holding her ribs against the door of the war rig, while pain lanced through her entire body. Many of her memories of that time are fuzzy, blotted out by blood loss and pain, but her muscles remember his compact bulk, the tug of him as she tried to hang on.

                Jenga is slender and wiry, his muscles a product of constant use but lacking any sort of true sustenance, but his size deceives Furiosa. He is able to lift his share of Max’s weight as they heft him onto the bike, draping his limp form over the handles. There’s a spare strap on the back of her bike, and Furiosa uses it to tie Max’s hands down. If he wakes during the ride back to Her Citadel, he’ll be livid with her, but she has no other way of transporting him – not when he can’t hold on himself. Jenga loops a loose strap around Max’s feet so that they won’t go flying, making sure the material is just tight enough to hold on.

                “What’s the brace for?” he asks. Furiosa glances at it. It’s a banged up piece of metal wrapped around his leg, she had noticed it before but hadn’t paid it much mind until she used it to keep him from going under the wheels.

                She shrugs her shoulder and crooks her head. It wasn’t like she had ever had the time to ask him. Jenga turns and drops onto his bike, gunning the engine. He waits for Furiosa to climb astride her own vehicle: awkward now that she has to reach around Max’s body to grasp the handles. She tugs her goggles up and nods at Jenga – the sooner they get him home, the sooner they’ll be able to help him. The war boy speeds off ahead of her, and she follows shortly, knees bumping against Max on the too small bike.

                Toast and cluster of war boys are waiting for them when they return. The boys are anxious, but Toast has her arms hanging limply at her sides, as though she refuses to be shaken. From a distance, everything must look normal – Furiosa will be hidden behind Max’s slumped body, and so it will still look as though only two are returning. But when they are just minutes from completing their trip, Max starts to jerk again. Immediately, Furiosa assumes that has woken and is struggling, confused, against his bonds. She doesn’t want to stop, not when they’re so close to the relief for which she is longing, but she doesn’t have a choice. His head is banging against the metal of her handlebars and even if he wasn’t going to hurt himself, he sends the motorcycle swerving side to side with his movements.

                She slides to a halt in the sand and watches as Jenga continues towards the reception party – there’s not much he could do to help her now, anyways. She clambers off of the bike and walks to the front to get a better look at Max. He’s not struggling against the strap, he’s having another sort of fit. His nose is bleeding from where he’s smashed it on the bike and his eyes are rolling into the back of his head. At least he’s not vomiting anymore, there must be nothing left in his stomach to upchuck. It’s a good thing they strapped him on, because otherwise, he would have thrown himself from the bike by now.

                There’s a bike coming towards her, someone from Her Citadel coming to help, but Furiosa is too focused on Max to notice. It isn’t until they are closing in on the last few feet that she spins herself around to stare down the incoming motorcycle. Capable’s red hair is flying behind her as she hastens toward where Furiosa stands, her body leaning forward on her bike. It’s unsurprising that she is the one currently racing towards Max, as she’s the closest thing they have to a field medic, until they find someone else who is as compassionate and simultaneously unperturbed as her. 

                Furiosa turns away from her incoming sister and looks at Max. His body is thrown back, arm stretched taut against the straps holding him down. His mouth is clamped shut and there’s blood on his lips, he either smashed them when he was flailing or bit them at some point. His nose, definitely broken, is crooked and oozing blood on his face. Thankfully, he still seems to be unconscious, half slumped to one side, supported only by the straps. Further down, his legs are bent at awkward angles; Furiosa had been too focussed on her destination to notice it, but his legs were probably juddering with the rest of him, and now that they’re still, they jut out in uncomfortable looking positions.

                Suddenly, in her moment of calm, just before Capable’s arrival, Furiosa feels a quick jolt of humiliation run through her. It’s not a feeling she experiences often, if she’s in a situation where she might possibly be ashamed, she’s usually too busy fighting her way out to stop and blush. But for a short, miniscule, heart fluttering second, she lets herself feel embarrassed on behalf of Max. She knows how much she would loathe to be found in such a state, and surely he won’t be pleased when he awakes. She wonders if she would have preferred to have been left alone in the dessert rather than rescued.

                Capable stops just beside Furiosa, kicking up dirt with her hasty dismount, and Furiosa shakes her head. Those are foolish thoughts for a survivor and Furiosa pays neither them, nor the niggling feeling of shame, any more attention. Capable is hastily untying a med pack from the back of her bike, her nimble fingers working with confidence where Furiosa would have none.

                “What’s wrong with him?” she asks, unlacing the leather that ties the pack shut. “What happened to him out there?”

                Furiosa just shakes her head, biting her lips into a thin line on her face. What _did_ happen to him out there?

                “Furiosa?” Capable asks. She looks mildly panicked, perhaps she is concerned that the two of them suffered the same injury and in moments she will have two convulsing vomitters on her hands.

                “I don’t know,” Furiosa finally answers. “When I found him, he was already having those fits.”

                “We need to get him to the Vault. Now. How much has he thrown up? Being dehydrated isn’t going to help him.” She pulls something out of the med pack, some sort of injection.

                “What is that?” Furiosa is suddenly concerned – does Capable really know what she’s doing here?

                “It’s a calm down shot,” she reassures her gently. “It’s just going to keep him relaxed for the rest of the journey. It will make it easier on all of us.” Once she’s injected Max, Capable helps Furiosa adjust him on the bike so that he’s not in such an uncomfortable position and then she jumps back onto her own. “Get some of the boys to carry him up to the Vault – immediately.” And then she spins rubber and flies away – leaving Furiosa alone with her heavy burden once more.

                Max, just as Capable said, stays perfectly still the rest of the way back, and the moment Furiosa stops, a group of war boys – led by Jenga – begin undoing the straps holding him onto the bike. Toast is suddenly at her side, watching, observing, as she is wont to do.

                “Take him to the Vault,” Furiosa says. She knows she should follow, but she suddenly feels the need to sit down and breathe, or she thinks she might pass out.

* * *

                There was so much fire. Smoke so thick that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Max choked on it, gagged on the soot curling its way into his chest cavity, stealing his oxygen from him.

                Somebody laughed in his face, somebody familiar looking but strange and otherworldly, too. _Long hair._ Max blinked sweat, or tears, out of his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear it. He couldn’t seem to think straight – it was probably the smoke. Or the fire. There was a fire somewhere, he was sure he remembered seeing one, at some point, somewhere.

                There’s another prick in the crook of his arm, and he’s getting pretty fucking tired of being stabbed all of the time. You’d think the assholes with long hair would be more worried about the…what should they be worried about, again?

                Suddenly, the world begins to shift and tilt. It’s moving forward and back and left and right and all around in circles and the air tastes acrid on his tongue. He can’t figure out why his arm hurts so bad but the sun flips from up to down and up again.

                The sand dunes are breaking into tiny triangles and floating and Max knows he’s going to vomit, but he just wants his arm to stop hurting and his head to stop spinning and the world to slow down and….

                Where did the men with the long hair go?

* * *

                When Furiosa finally forces herself to make her way up to the Vault, it’s a long trek. Her Citadel is large, and there are many tiny passageways carved into it. She stumbles along, more exhausted that she is willing to recognize, eventually making her way through the hydroponics room and ducking to enter the Vault. It doesn’t feel nearly as oppressive now as it once did, but the space still makes her skin crawl. It’s no wonder the sisters decided to find rooms elsewhere in Her Citadel. This space finds little use now as the general populace chooses to avoid it. The few times Furiosa has found herself in the hydroponics area since returning, the door to the Vault has been tightly shut.

                But now this space has a purpose again, a purpose better than the one it had before, and so she swallows her rising illness and pushes herself through the hole in the wall that pretends to be a door. She hears hushed voices coming from the upstairs and now that she’s here, she’s not sure why she took such a long time to arrive. Unable to make out what the voices are saying, but suddenly desperate to know, she rushes up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

                The upstairs is a small loft like area, with a large bed in the middle of the space and not much else. It’s difficult to keep the bile from rising in her throat as she remembers the feeling of the scratchy fabric being pressed against her face. She shakes herself and blinks to clear away the cobwebbed memories, focuses instead on the people around the bed. Capable and Toast are standing side by side, shoulders tense. One of the Vulvalini, Airmed, is hunched over the mattress and only Max’s legs show from underneath her form. She’s doing something, whispering something, and Furiosa doesn’t want to interrupt, but she has to know what’s happening.

                Toast glances up at her, her gaze understanding and unsurprised at Furiosa’s presence.

                “How is he?” Furiosa asks, terrified to step any further into the space.

                “Not good,” Capable winces. “We’re doing everything we can, but –“

                Furiosa shakes her head. “What do you mean, ‘not good’? What’s wrong with him?”

                Max’s legs jolt, leaving filthy prints on the blankets underneath of him. Airmed stands up quickly, probably to keep from having her nose broken as Max seizes.

               “Shouldn’t we do something? Hold him down?” Furiosa feels anxiety building in her gut, twisting like a feral worm.

               “No. Best thing to do is just let him ride it out.” Airmed steps back. “He’s been injected with something,” she says, as she turns to face Furiosa.

               Are they really just going to pretend that Max is not currently shaking the bed so violently he’s banging the frame against the wall? Furiosa squints, tilting her head. “What has he been injected with?”

               “I’m not sure, but –“ There’s a strange, gurgling sound coming from the bed and Airmed cuts herself off, turning back hastily. “Help me get him on his side,” she says, already attempting to grab hold of his flailing arms. “He’ll choke if we don’t.”

               Rushing over to the other side of the bed, Furiosa grabs onto to Max’s torso, as she is unable to pin his arms down, and rolls him so that he is facing her. She longs for him to stop shaking and open his eyes; to once more return from the haze of the bog with gifts and blood on his scalp that isn’t his. It doesn’t do to dwell on such thoughts, though, so she clears her head and blinks at Airmed.

               “You were saying?”

               “I’m not sure what they injected him with, but he’s been out there for days. While you were recuperating here, he was in the dessert.”

               “How much did they inject him with?”

               “I don’t know.” She picks up his arm and rolls his sleeve back to show Furiosa the puncture marks. Up and down the inner side, where the flesh is soft, are numerous small, red dots. “I counted at least 15 on both arms, but there could be more that I haven’t seen yet. Whatever they injected him with, they did it multiple times. This reaction could be to the drug, or he could be going through withdraw.”

               “How do we know?”

               “No way but to wait. We’ll have to see if the seizures stop coming – if they do, that’s a good sign.”

               “What’s a bad sign?” Toast asks calmly from the corner. She and Capable are standing closer to Furiosa, now. They must have encroached while she was focused on Max. She finds their presence in her personal space simultaneously comforting and cloying.

               “Well, either the seizures stop coming, and he gets better, or he dies.” Airmed is frank, and she stares at Furiosa as though she’s challenging the woman to argue. But Furiosa just nods and sets herself down on the edge of the mattress.

               “You all have other work to do,” she says carefully, ignoring the raw feeling in the back of her mouth. “You’d better see to it.”

               “We can stay,” Capable says quietly.

               She knows they don’t want to. Nobody wants to be in this space for any reason, that’s why they brought Max up here – he won’t be perturbed, or – indeed – seen while he’s here. “Go do your work,” Furiosa insists. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”

               As Capable and Toast file down the stairs, Airmed lays an arm on her shoulder, fingers warm and hard against her skin. “If you can get him to drink, give him some water.” She squeezes once, twice and then turns to leave.

               “Wait, isn’t there something else we can do for him?”

               “I’m sorry,” Airmed shrugs, and she really does look pained as she speaks. “Right now, it’s not worth it for him. You need to be ready, Furiosa, things probably won’t get better. When he left here, he had very little blood to sustain himself, and who knows how many days he’s been out there with this drug in his system? You need to be ready.” She reaches out to drag a thumb down Furiosa’s cheek. “I’ll be back in a while to see if anything’s changed.”

               As she watches Airmed work her way down the stairs, Furiosa feels like her mouth is filling with sand. She tries to swallow, but it’s dry and gritty against the back of her throat. _This is a foolishness I can’t afford_ , she tell herself of her reckless sentimentality. But it’s hard to feel nothing when she turns to look at Max, who may very well be giving his life to have saved her. She leans forward, resting her arms on her knees and takes a deep breath, letting the sand from her mouth slowly filter into her lungs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there was so much time between the last chapter and this one - RL has been a little crazy busy recently. I know this chapter is short, but I wanted to get something up ASAP for y'all. I plan on posting another chapter tonight or tomorrow night (at the latest). :)

           Something…white…bright…something is in his eyes, blinding him completely. As he regains a level of consciousness, Max thinks this is nothing like he ever imagined going blind would be. He can’t see for the glimmer in his eyes and he moves his head side to side, hoping that the actions will clear his vision.

          Bad decision.

          His head throbs. It feels like a war rig is rolling over his temples slowly, crushing the soft bone there. The pain makes him want to vomit, his stomach clenches and roils, in agreement with his brain, and he rolls onto his side, gagging.

          For the first time, as he’s retching (nothing seems to be coming up, so he’s dry heaving pitifully), he can feel the softness of his surroundings. He’s on something padded and moderately comfortable, fabric pressing against his naked torso. His arms feel raw, as though someone has clawed at them, and the skin between his toes, free from his boots, feels pinched and tight.

He blinks again, and the whiteness starts to fade from his vision, but he still can’t see properly, so he flinches violently when a hand lays on his shoulder.

          "Hey, it’s okay. It me.” The voice is whispering. Furiosa?

          He tries to ask her name out loud, but his throat is too raw. How much screaming has he done? He can’t speak, he can’t see, so he shakes his head.

          “It’s Furiosa,” the hand on his shoulder tightens its grip slightly, fingers making small indents in his flesh. “You’re in the Vault.”

          Max blinks again. Her sentence make no sense to him – he has never heard of a place called “the Vault” and he doesn’t know whether this means safety or more danger. His vision clears some more, enough that he can make out gauzy fabric billowing in a light breeze, a window framing sunshine – likely the main culprit of his momentary blindness. He lets out a pained cough and tries to ask for water, but little more than a grunt comes out.

          “Water?” Furiosa asks. Suddenly, her hand moves from his shoulder to the back of his head, wordlessly encouraging him to tilt his body back. There’s the rim of a tin cup at his lips and she tilts it so that a miniscule amount of the liquid trickles into his mouth.

          At the first taste of water, Max is overcome with overwhelming thirst. He feels as though he has not had anything to drink in days. Never, in all of his years, does he remember feeling so parched. He wants to submerse himself in a room filled with water and to never leave. He feels positive he could consume all of it.

          Infuriatingly, Furiosa continues to only allow a small amount of water to flow from the cup into his mouth. He reaches up to take the cup from her, batting her prosthetic hand away. But his hands are shaking for some reason, and he jostles the cup as he tries to drink greedily from it, getting more on his chin and chest than in his mouth. He ignores the heat of Furiosa’s gaze on him, and refuses to feel any measure of embarrassment for being such a mess. Once he has drained the cup (or rather, dumped most of it on himself) he turns to look at her.

          She looks utterly exhausted: more so than she did when they were chasing Immortan Joe, more so than he ever remembers seeing her. But she doesn’t look as though she is afraid for their safety or concerned by their surroundings. Where ever this “Vault” is, they are safe enough. For the moment. He ignores the potential possibility of danger in favor of his thirst. “More water,” he manages to grunt, now that something has soothed some of the soreness inside of him.

          “Not yet,” she says, ripping the cup away from him before he can argue. She hands him a rag to wipe off the water he’s spilled, but he just glares at her angrily. “You’re dehydrated. You’ll make yourself sick.”

          He looks out the window, away from her, and can see some greenery outside. There is an earth red plateau across from him, the flat top of it blanketed in a dense green sheet. This Vault must be part of Her Citadel, he thinks, because it is the only place he knows on this side of the salt with so much green. His vision begins to swim, blurring with the glaring whiteness that blinded him when he woke. He lets his head fall back against the pillows and regrets his choice when his head is jostled.

          “What happened?” he asks, closing his eyes. The whiteness fades, at least momentarily, behind his eyelids.

“Found you out in the dessert,” she says. He can feel the bed dip as she drops her weight onto the mattress beside him. He doesn’t move over for her. “You were a mess. Shaking, unconscious, throwing up.” He opens his eyes to look at her, but still can’t see anything, so he shuts them once more; lifts an arm to cover them up, for good measure. “Brought you back here,” she continues, her voice sounds a little closer than it did a second ago. “And Capable and Airmed have been seeing to you.”

          “And you,” he mutters.

          “I don’t need seeing to.”

          “You have been seeing to me.” Six words. Most he’s spoken since he woke up, and his throat throbs with the effort of it.

          “Yes,” she says, her tone defensive.

          “How long?”

          “I don’t know how long you were out there before I found you – I made the trip to Gas Town about two weeks after you left. So it could have been 14 days.”

          “It was.” He remembers be captured on the day he left Her Citadel, but not much else. 14 days, that band of bike monkeys had him.

          He can hear Furiosa pause for a moment, whether she’s taking in the new information or doing some sort of calculating, he doesn’t know. It is harder to have an unspoken conversation with her when he can’t see her face, but her silences still speak louder than most people’s. “And you’ve been here for five days.”

          “Five?” He tries to open his eyes once more, but the whiteness pains his still aching head. He feels like he might be sick, but he doesn’t intend to give up what little water he got without a fight. With some effort, he manages to swallow down his rising sickness.

          “Airmed thought you were going to die.” There is no discernable emotion in Furiosa’s voice.

          “I didn’t,” he responds, unsure of what else to say.

          “Not yet.” Furiosa’s voice is strained, and for a moment, Max remembers her slouching away on a sand dune, bellowing at the sky. He ignores the image in his mind and focuses on her breathing next to him. Neither of them says anything for a long moment, they’re just breathing next to one another. Dimly, Max can hear the clanging of metal drifting through the window: somebody, somewhere is working on some sort of machine.

          “You want some more water?” Furiosa finally asks. She’s close enough that he can feel the rush of her breath as she speaks. He grunts an affirmative.

          He stays reclined against the pillows as he listens to her rise and move to where there must be a basin or water reservoir of some sort. So far, he hasn’t had the wherewithal or mind to take in all of his surroundings, but he trusts Furiosa more than he trusts most people, and besides, he’s in too much pain to feel overly concerned.

          Her footsteps walk back towards him and she puts the tin cup in his hands, which are still shaking. The water slops over and dampens the mattress next to Max as he works to lift the cup to his mouth. Furiosa doesn’t try to help him and he ignores the grateful feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. “Drink it slow,” she commands, even though they both know he couldn’t physically drink it fast if he tried.

          After emptying the cup, he drops it on the floor, exhausted, and Furiosa picks it up, her metal hand clicking as it closes around the tin. He figures he got about 40% of the water inside of him and the rest is on and around him. His head feels like it’s filled with cotton and he knows he’s not going to be conscious much longer.

          “Sleep,” Furiosa says quietly, like nightmares have never bothered her before – like she thinks unconsciousness is a safe haven from the waking world. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

* * *

          The moment Max’s eyes close, Furiosa feels the tension bleed from her like a clean wound. She sets his cup on the chair in the corner of the room and leans against the wall, letting her body sag until she is seated on the floor. He didn’t say anything about it while he was awake, but she’s concerned about his vision. Granted, he’s always had trouble focusing on any one thing for a long time, but the way he kept closing and covering his eyes has her worried. Airmed will be back shortly, and Furiosa fears asking her what could be causing this vision loss.

          The bed around Max is damp and could make him ill, so she knows she’ll need to strip the sheets off of the mattress. Furiosa allows herself another moment on the floor before forcing her body up off of the ground. She levers herself away from the wall and walks over to where Max is snoring gently. The fact that he’s sleeping is good, the fact that he fell asleep so easily is disconcerting. She tugs the sheets free of the mattress on one side before walking over the other side of the bed.

          Using the strength of her metal arm, Furiosa pushes Max onto his side and frees the sheet from under him, stripping it off of the mattress with her other hand. He grunts as she pushes him out of the way, but otherwise shows no sign of awareness. She balls the wet fabric up and lets it drop to the floor where she knows it will be retrieved by someone else. As she turns, she is met by a shock of red hair. Furiosa finds herself unable to contain a small huff of surprise: Capable is getting very good at sneaking up the stairs. “What is it?” Furiosa asks, not unkindly.

          “You've been up here with him for 4 days straight,” Capable murmurs. “We need you. We need your help.” Furiosa knows it isn’t fair to let her sisters flounder with the operation of Her Citadel while she stays locked in the Vault with Max, but she hasn’t been able to tear herself away from him. Airmed’s words ring in between her ears every time she moves to leave the space. She doesn't want him to die, but if he’s going to go, she can't let him die alone.

          “I’ll stay with him,” Capable says gently, her tone grating in Furiosa’s chest. She doesn’t want to be coddled. She doesn’t need to be coddled. “At least go clean yourself off, get something to eat. Talk to the others. Help them make some decisions. When you’re done, I’ll be here.”

          “I told him I’d stay with him,” Furiosa says shortly.

          Capable’s eyes brighten and her back straightens. “He woke up?”

          “Just for a while.”

          “What did he say?”

          “He was thirsty. He told me that he was captured the day he left here. So they had him for two weeks.”

          Capable frowns, but doesn’t say anything.

          “I’ll go clean myself, and get something to eat. But then I’ll be back.” Her Citadel functioned fine without her before. The Sisters were more able than they were aware. Capable still doesn’t say anything, just watches as Furiosa hurries down the stairs and out of the Vault.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if this subject matter necessitates a trigger warning or not, but there will be some frank writing about drug withdrawal in this chapter and in the next one. Ye be warned! It may get nasty.

                It isn’t long before Max wakes again. Furiosa has only just come back up to the loft when he begins to stir, body shifting aggressively on the bare mattress. He opens his eyes quickly, widening them to stare at Furiosa where she sits on the floor. “Told you I’d be here,” she mutters, staring at his knee brace in her hands. Airmed took it off when he first arrived, so that he wouldn’t smack anyone with it during one of his seizures, and Furiosa’s had a mind to clean and oil it since then.

                Max continues to stare at her, something like panic flaring up in his constricted pupils.

                “Can you see alright?” she asks, remembering his attempts to block his vision earlier.

                “Hm,” he hums. It seems like a yes to her. He rolls onto his side so that he’s facing her and lets out a low, anguished groan.

                She remembers how he was on the road – a wounded fighter. Hand pierced and he took down the People Eater and his driver. Rictus smashed his head against the wall of the war rig, and he still managed to take him down long enough to get away. Furiosa isn’t used to hearing, or seeing, Max react to pain or injury and it makes her feel vulnerable in a way she hates to hear him voice his hurt.

                “You okay?” she asks, not wanting a truthful answer at all.

                “I’m gonna puke,” he grunts. He doesn’t give her much warning. The moment the words leave his mouth, he doubles over the side of the bed and opens his mouth. All he has in his stomach is water, so there’s a sickening gurgling noise and a splash as he empties it onto the dusty floor. Once he’s done, he leans back onto the bed and sighs. “Sorry,” he whispers, like he doesn’t really want her to hear it.

                “It’s okay,” she lies.

                Max stares at the wall above her head for a long while, not saying anything, just grimacing, as though the wall has offended him somehow. Furiosa waits a few moments, but when he doesn’t say or do anything, she goes back to oiling the knee brace that’s resting on her lap.

                “That’s my knee brace,” he finally says.

                “Mhm,” she answers, still not looking up.

                “Why do you have it?” his voice still sounds as raw as the last time he woke up. Furiosa glances up at him when she registers the tremor in his voice and sees that he’s shaking. She doesn’t know what’s going on and she suddenly wishes she had left Capable here to deal with him instead.

                “You were convulsing before,” she says, rather than getting up and bolting from the room. “We took it off so you wouldn’t hurt anyone with it.”

                “What’s wrong with me?” he asks, closing his eyes. Furiosa wonders if he, like her, doesn’t really want a truthful answer.

                “You were picked up by some gang…I guess. I found you five days ago in the dessert. Airmed, our doctor, says that you overdosed on some sort of drug. They injected you many times.”

                “How many?” he asks. He’s shivering.

                “I don’t know. We counted 15 sites on your arms, 18 on your legs and I know they used your feet, too, we just can’t tell how many times.” Max’s shivering becomes more pronounced even as he nods at her.

                “What was it?” he asks, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand. The action alone seems to drain him of all of his energy and he flops back down onto the mattress, shaking violently now. They both choose to ignore it.

                “We don’t know. Whatever it was, it fucked you up.” She sets the knee brace down on the chair next to her, by the tin cup, and raises herself from the floor. “You cold?” she finally asks. It’s boiling in the Vault, sunlight streaming into the loft through the open window and the air still in the afternoon. Furiosa is sweating in her shirt and pants, but Max seems to be shivering with only his pants on.

                “I think so,” he finally admits. There’s sheen of sweat on his forehead that she can make out much better now that she’s risen off of the floor.

                “I’ll get you a blanket,” she says. She doesn’t wait for an answer before hastening down the stairs.

                Furiosa rummages through the refuse left behind in the rooms where the sisters used to live. Old mattresses and pillows, torn books and rags that were once clothes. She moves quickly, focussing on the task at hand so that she doesn’t have to think about Max, upstairs, shivering like a frozen child. The room smells like dust and disuse, even though it’s only been out of commission for a few weeks. There’s a leather bound book atop a pile of fabric and Furiosa tosses it to the side, shaking out the material beneath it. There’s a length of fabric that was likely once used as a towel, but it’s dry and fairly clean, so she decides to take it for Max.

                She shakes the majority of the dust off of it before rolling it up in her arms and turning from the room. It’s difficult, but Furiosa manages to force herself not to run up the stairs, or to turn and hurry from the Vault. Instead, she walks up the stairs to the loft at a moderate pace, clutching the blanket more tightly than she would like to admit. When she gets to the top of the stairs, Max is emitting a low sound. She likens it to moaning, but he sounds more like a wounded animal than a human in pain. The noise makes her think of the mothers who were dying in child birth, caught in the throes of something so primal, completely lost in their animal instincts. Those mothers, in so much pain and suffering so profusely, were not with Furiosa when they died. And Max is not with her right now.

                He is still shivering on the bed, shaking the frame violently with his movement. Max’s eyes roll in their sockets and he has drool on the side of his face. Suddenly, Furiosa can stand it no longer. She lets out a quivering wail, quiet and broken, but violent in the small space. Her chest is aching and her limbs feel numb. She uncurls her fingers from the fabric and walks over to the bed. Max’s head lolls from side to side, unseeing of the world surrounding him. His legs shift and the muscles in his arms and torso visibly clench as he continues to shake. Unable to watch any further, Furiosa hurriedly throws the blanket over Max’s body, covering all but his face. She wants to cover her own face, block out this completely inappropriate scene.

                Few things in life make Furiosa so uncomfortable as seeing weakness in someone – especially someone who is not weak. Seeing someone be hurt or humiliated enrages her, seeing someone die fills her with longing for vengeance or sorrow, being hurt makes her strive for retribution, but seeing weakness in someone makes her feel empty, hollow, useless. So she does the only thing she can think of and leans over Max’s body, wiping the spit off of his face. Airmed will be here soon, and Furiosa won’t make things worse by letting someone else see him like this.

                The only grace she can see at this moment is that he must be unconscious and he’ll never know what she’s seen. That is the only solace she can find.

                After some time, his shivering stops and his eyes go still, lids closing slowly. He keeps breathing: slow, painful sounding breaths eking out of his lungs with a quiet wheezing sound. Furiosa is focused so intently on him that she doesn’t register Airmed in the room until the doctor says her name.

                “Furiosa, how is he?”

                “I don’t know.” Furiosa turns to look at the woman, aged and worn by the dessert, far wiser in the needs of a patient than Furiosa will ever hope to be. She fights a short mental battle with herself – wondering how much of Max’s vulnerability to share with the woman in front of her. How much is too much for his dignity to take? How much is too little to be able to help him?

                “He threw up?” Airmed nods at the dark spot beside the bed and Furiosa nods back. “He was cold?” Again, Furiosa nods.

                “He was shivering.” Does that matter? It might.

                “I think he’s going through withdrawal,” Airmed mutters, walking around the bed and tugging one of Max’s arms out from under the blanket. She wraps her fingers around his wrist and closes her eyes, tuning out the world around her. Max grunts at the intrusion to his sleep, but takes no other notice of the two women in the room.

                Furiosa doesn’t speak until Airmed opens her eyes and drops Max’s hand to the mattress. “So?”

                “He’s not safe yet,” Airmed ambiguously cautions Furiosa against hope. “But this is a good sign.”

                “What did they dose him with?”

                The older woman shrugs and sits on the edge of the chair, pushing the knee brace and tin cup back to make room for herself. “It could be anything. These are the symptoms some of the mothers went through after taking too many forget drugs. They could have given him calm down shots, or hallucination shots…whatever it was, it’s getting out of his system now.”

                Furiosa feels like her insides are clenching together. “How long will he be like this?” She hates this, and she knows Max would, too, if he was aware enough to know it.

                “Don’t know. Depends on how much of the drug they gave him. A few days? Maybe a few weeks.”

                “What do we do?” Furiosa cannot stay in the loft for a few weeks. She has to get back to the people of Her Citadel. She has to get back to her sisters. But neither can she imagine leaving Max to be cared for by others. She doesn’t remember him saving her life, but she remembers asking him to take her home, and he did. She owes him something. She owes him everything.

                “Keep him hydrated. I’ll have a boy bring up some soup for him – he’ll need something to sustain him.”

                “What do I do?” Furiosa asks, but she knows Airmed can’t have an answer to that question.

                The woman ducks her head and moves her arms, like she’s attempting another shrug but unwilling to give up enough energy to do so. They watch each other for some time, the only noise in the room is Max’s ragged breathing and the sound of metal work filtering in through the window. Finally, Airmed rises from the chair and walks to the stairs. “Give him some water. I’ll send Cheedo up to check on you in a while.”

                Furiosa nods, looks through the curtains and out the window.

                “Don’t forget about yourself,” Airmed says as she descends the stairs.


End file.
